June 30, 2012

Today is my Mum's birthday and unfortunately we were not able to celebrate with her.  She's in good hands though, spending the day in Calgary with Wes and the "western Moerman's"  Happy Birthday Mum!!

This morning we took the girls on their first real hike up a mountain.  It's a tradtion to climb the Sugarloaf Mountain located on the edge of town.  It's about a 1000 feet high and a grueling climb.  The girls did great with Claire climbing about 3/4 of it herself and Ava did a little over a 1/4 with the rest spent on our shoulders.  We were rewarded at the top with a beautiful view of the town of Campbellton and the Restigouch River.  Here is Claire and Ava searching through the houses trying to find Nanny and Grampy's blue house! 

June 29, 2012

Finally getting a break with the weather and we drove over to the Quebec side and hiked to this beautiful waterfall!  Mike's Mom loves waterfalls and surprisingly had never been here.

June 28, 2012

After 2 days of rain, we were happy to see the clouds clear a little bit.  We took this opportunity to head to the park around the corner and burn off some energy.  Unfortunately it didn't last long and after about 45 minutes, it started to rain again and we had to go home early.  It sure was fun while it lasted.

June 27, 2012

Grampy had 2 fishing rods waiting for Claire and Ava when we arrived, and they were both so excited to be able to go out to the brook and practice their casting and reeling in. 

June 26, 2012

It's been a long day, I have been exhauseted from the drive and it has been pouring rain all day...  Mike's Dad has been trying so hard to catch us a fresh salmon to eat while we are visiting with no luck.  Tomorrow morning Mike and his Dad are going out on the boat (a 26 foot canoe with a motor on the back) early in the morning to give it another try.  We didn't pack any rain jackets for ourselves so, after being cooped up inside all day, Nanny, Grampy, Claire and Ava walked down in the rain to Don and Jeannie's to get an extra raincoat for the morning fishing excursion. 

June 25, 2012

After my night shift we hit the road this morning ready for our 18 hour drive to New Brunswick to visit Nanny and Grampy.  The drive was going great until just past Kingston when traffic came to a halt.  We were finally able to make it to an exit and thanks to a fancy function on our GPS that we found while sitting in traffic, it lead us through some backroads and past the slow down.  Thankfully we were back to full speed and I am thankfull that our girls travel so well!  They were both so excited to visit Nanny and Grampy.  Shortly after we past Montreal and way past Claire's usual bedtime, Claire announced that she needed to keep her eyes open for the rest of the drive so that she could see Nanny and Grampy's blue house when we pulled up.  Fortunately she did close those eyes as we pulled into their driveway at 4:30am.

June 24, 2012

Our friend's Abby and Taylor's son Brock turned 2 today!!  We had a blast at his pirate themed birthday party!!  Arrrrrrrrrr!

June 23, 2012

Today was the Canada Day parade in Brights Grove.  Claire, all decked out in her Canada Day apparel, was in awe watching the floats go by.

June 22, 2012

We were invited over to Claire's best buddy, Kenean's house for a swim this afternoon.  He loves to fish bugs out of the pool and Claire was fascinated by it.

June 21, 2012

Another hot day and we headed down to the beach to cool off with Claire's best buddy Keanen.  Here they are burying Claire's swimming goggles. 

June 20, 2012

I have three hanging baskets on my front porch, two of them are doing great, but this one just can't seem to hold the water.  As soon as I water it, the water just runs out the bottom.  It's really struggling with this heat wave.  Pretty sure, it's not going to last the summer.  :(

June 19, 2012

Whew it is HOT today and we are so greatful for friends with pools!  This is Claire singing as she was floating around.

June 18, 2012

The stone is up and it looks beautiful.  My Mum did a great job designing it and it's perfect.  Still hard to see my own Dad's name on one of these and today is one of those days when it just doesn't seem fair.  I miss you so much Dad.

June 17, 2012

Do it for Dad

Today we ran a 5k run for Prostate Cancer in honor of my Dad.  I am sure he would have had tears in his eyes if he knew all these people were doing this for him!  What a great turnout and I can't thank everyone enough for all of their support to us and especially my Mum over the last little while.  It means so much that so many people would take the time on Father's Day to do this.  I still find it hard to believe that I don't have a Dad anymore and that he is not just on a trip, or we just haven't talked in a bit, and being surrounded by friends and family on this first Father's Day without my Dad made it that much easier.

June 16, 2012

Team Defibrillated Bacon!  Great job this year and a 5th place finish in the 911 co-ed category!  We completed the race in about 5 1/2 hours biked on some fantastic mountain bike trails, got a little scratched and muddy, went waist deep in a swamp, had to tough out a few leg cramps and some minor complaining by the Courty's in the canoe.  We didn't get lost, helped a few people along the way and crossed the finish line with a smile on our face!  Great day!

June 15, 2012

ESAR is tomorrow and this year it is being held in Apsley!  How convenient, this is where the cottage is located!  We were so fortunate that Chris and Heather let us stay there for the night.  I love it there, it's so peaceful and lately, Chris feels like a second father to me.  After supper we spent the evening around the dinning room table looking at old photos of the Deep River days and hearing all the stories that go with them.  I will never tire of listening to stories of my Dad's "Deep" shenanigans.  Just wish I could hear his laughter and watch his hand go up to his forehead as the stories were told.  Little memories deep within my heart now.

June 14, 2012

As I left the house this morning for a day shift, I noticed the sprinklers had been on last night and left all these nice water droplets on our daylillies which had just started to flower.

June 13, 2012

Maverick and I went for a sunset walk tonight after everyone was in bed.  He looks like the perfect dog lying nicely in the grass....really what had just happened is... he just ate something he shouldn't, got into trouble and now wouldn't come back for me to put his leash on.  Grrrrr.

June 12, 2012

Laundry, laundry, laundry, and more laundry.... this is what I got to look forward to after the girls went to bed....

June 11, 2012

Our extended Moerman family has a new addition!  This sweet little boy was born to Karla and Matt a few weeks early and Claire and I had the pleasure of meeting him today.  It was great to visit with Karla and see their new place!  Here are a couple of my favourite pictures from our visit. 

June 10, 2012

In our Agreement of Purchase and Sale when we bought our house, the former owners had put a clause in that allowed them to take certain perennials from the gardens.  They attempted to take a peony bush, but left one tiny bulb.  Over the last 6 years it has now grown into a huge bush that produces these lovely pink and white flowers. 

June 9, 2012

Since the girls are having a sleepover with Oma, Mike and I had the evening to ourselves.  So, after we got home from work, we took a walk down to the beach to watch the sunset.  It was a pretty one tonight!

June 8, 2012

We have an automatic soap dispenser at work.  It takes soap from the container and mixes it with the right amount of water and then we can fill the bucket to wash the ambulance.  I'm not sure what happened to it, but now it puts a ridiculous amount of soap in the buck.  Here's the soap bubbling up from the drain in the floor after a wash.

June 7, 2012

We went to visit my Mum today.  Claire and Ava are spending the weekend with her, as Mike and I are both working.  During the afternoon, Ava went a sat on this rock in the garden.  Here they are examining a leaf off one of the bushes.

June 6, 2012

We went over to Sam's Club today in America and Claire and Ava each got to pick out a new book.  Claire chose this one, Thomas the Tank Engine and tracing letters.  Here she is ever so carefully tracing the letters in her new book.

June 5, 2012

I recently got a new road biking helmet and I got to try it out this evening after work, riding the hills of Hungry Hollow and Rock Glen, just outside of Thedford and Arkona.  It was a great ride and I love my new helmet, it fits like a glove!

June 4, 2012

Today I accidently forgot my camera at work and had not yet taken a picture.  So here's one from my iphone and all it's horrible quality.  Ava is going through this phase at bedtime where she holds #2 in, until just before it's time to go to bed and then decides it's the perfect time to go.  It wouldn't be so bad if it only took 5 min, but it's a half hour affair and she goes. every. time.  This must change or bedtime is going to be happening a half an hour sooner.

June 3, 2012

Mike and I ran in the 10k Bridge Race today.  It's a neat race as we are bused over to the American side and then run across the Bluewater Bridge to Canatara Park.  We were both really happy with our times.  There were some discrepancies with the timing this year, but my GPS watch said I finished it in 51:13!  Mike beat me by 20 seconds.  I tried hard to catch him, but started to fall apart the last 2 km when my left foot fell asleep and my shoelace came undone.  I had Mike in my sights and didn't want to stop to tie it up and lets face it, I just didn't have enough in the tank.

The tonight, as I was walking past the front door, I noticed this humongous moon rising above the treetops.  Very cool.



June 2, 2012

Today Claire and I went to volunteer our time providing first aid at the Plunkett Car Show in London.  This is a huge event and raises money for the hospital.  I was able to see first hand where the money went when my Dad was at the Cancer Centre.  The pagers he would receive were donated by the Plunkett Foundation. 

Claire and I had a great day together and even got to ride around in these amphicars.  We were fortunate to get an extra long ride. Ours was having a hard time getting out of the water and we had to do a couple of extra laps around the pond, in order to gather more speed to get up the ramp. 

And then there were dancing tractors.  They put on a sqaure dancing show! 

June 1, 2012

Claire loves her bedtime stories and when she would have sleepovers at Oma and Opa's, she used to be able to talk Opa into reading her almost every book in the basket.  Then 45 minutes later, she would be ready for bed...  She's having a hard time making it through one story tonight.

May 31, 2012

Claire loves to play Candyland and we we able to get a few games in before her "little" nap today.